Here is the premise of a recent movie called Minority Report: Scientists of the future have learned how to identify killers before they kill. Tom Cruise, an investigator for the Precrime Unit, is assigned to kill the prekillers before they can commit the murders the government has predicted. The film is based on a story by Philip K. Dick, the late master of science fiction.

Here is the premise recently advanced by columnist Charles Krauthammer in support of the war against Iraq which he so fearlessly advocates:

"There is one thing that I think everybody has overlooked -- we are going to have retroactive evidence. Even though I would like us to be able to have a smoking gun, I don't know how close we are going to come to producing it when the President decides that it is time."

This fresh approach to the Rules of Evidence is based on the fictional works of George W. Bush, Richard Perle, Richard Cheney, Paul D. Wolfowitz, and Donald Rumsfeld.

Don't I remember something about retroactive evidence created after the first Persian Gulf War? Something about babies in a hospital being abused or killed, and the U.S. media ran with the story, but ultimately it turned out that the whole thing was cooked up by a Kuwaiti princess.

Posted by: Dave T. on January 28, 2003 6:02 PM

Not retroactive, no. It was propaganda cooked up in advance, by highly paid liars from the PR firm of Hill & Knowlton. They got the princess to testify before Congress during the run-up to Daddy Bush's splendid little war.